The Cyber-Bio interface
Harvey Rubin, MD, PhD
University of Pennsylvania
NSF
Austin, Texas. October 17, 2006
Goals
(a) clearly enumerate the fundamental limitations of
today’s cyber-physical systems,
(b) determine new cyber-physical applications and
advances that can produce significant societal and
economic impact,
(c) understand the core technical challenges that
must be addressed to enable future cyber-physical
systems,
(d) establish an overall architectural framework for
cyber-physical systems, and
(e) identify new innovations and powerful cross-layer
abstractions that will satisfy the challenging
requirements of future cyber-physical systems.
The four questions for cyber-bio systems
1.
Can biological systems operationalize certain aspects of cyber
systems so that we can understand and design advanced
biological systems?
2.
Can biological systems operationalize certain aspects of cyber
systems so that we can understand and design advanced cyber
systems?
3.
Can cyber systems operationalize certain aspects of biological
systems so that we can understand and design advanced
biological systems?
4.
Can cyber systems operationalize certain aspects of biological
systems so that we can understand and design advanced cyber
systems?
Cyber-Bio comparisons: on the totally arbitrary and arguable scale of 1-5
Cyber
Bio
Logic operations
Programmable
Parallel processing
5
5
3
1
2
5
Standardization
Abstraction
Modularity
Predictability of part
Predictability of part in system
Stable/durable in the natural environment
Stable/durable under stress and attack
5
5
5
5
4
4
2
3
2
5
3
2
3
4
Energy efficiency
Logically reversible
Thermodynamically reversible
2
2
2
5
4
4
Scalable
3
3
Evolvable
Self learning
Self repair
Self correcting
Self assembly
Self-Replicating (hardware)
Richness of user interface
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
5
5
5
5
5
5
4
Multi-agent communication
Aggregate data and predict outcomes
Solve the “inverse problem”
3
0-1
0-1
4
4
5
Impact on society
0-4
5
1. Can biological systems operationalize certain aspects of cyber
systems so that we can understand and design advanced biological
systems?
Logic operations
Programmable
Parallel processing
5
5
3
1
2
5
Standardization
Abstraction
Modularity
Predictability of parts
Predictability of parts in system
Stable/durable in the natural environment
Stable/durable under stress and attack
5
5
5
5
4
4
2
3
2
5
3
2
4
4
individuals
societies and
cultures
Answer to Question 1 –YES
up to the level of tissues and cultures, this is predominantly in the world
of synthetic biology
• Cell cycle counter and cell
division reporter
• Control metabolic pathways
and switches
• Regulate intracellular
communications
• Microbial fuel cells
• New therapies
• Biological sensors
Roger Kornberg
Arthur Kornberg
National Science Advisory Board
for Biosecurity (NSABB)
subcommittee on synthetic
biology
Andrew Fire
Craig Mello
Isaacs, Dwyer, Collins
Another example of best practices: recent publication of 1918 Pandemic
Influenza Virus Papers
“The 1918 virus and recombinant
H1N1 influenza viruses were generated
using the previously described reverse
genetics system (8, 14). All viruses
containing one or more gene segments
from the 1918 influenza virus were
generated and handled under highcontainment biosafety level 3
enhanced (BSL3) laboratory conditions
in accordance with guidelines of the
National Institutes of Health and the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (15).”
“1918 Flu and Responsible Science”
“I firmly believe that allowing the
publication of this
information was the correct decision in
terms of both national security and
public health.”
Science Editorial
Vol.
310, 7 October 2005
Philip A. Sharp
“The 1918 flu genome: Recipe for
Destruction”
“This is extremely foolish. The
genome is essentially
the design of a weapon of
mass destruction.”
New York Times Op-Ed
October 17, 2005
Ray Kurzweil and Bill Joy
A new idea that specifically addresses an
enormous societal problem if bio systems can operationalize cyber
systems to design more advanced bio systems
(a) clearly enumerate the fundamental limitations of
today’s cyber-physical systems
(b) determine new cyber-physical applications and
advances that can produce significant societal and
economic impact
(c) understand the core technical challenges that
must be addressed to enable future cyber-physical
systems
(d) establish an overall architectural framework for
cyber-physical systems
(e) identify new innovations and powerful cross-layer
abstractions that will satisfy the challenging
requirements of future cyber-physical systems
THE NEW ARMS RACE:
Making the Case for a Comprehensive International Compact for
Infectious Diseases
Harvey Rubin, MD, PhD
Plenary Address
Infectious Disease Society of America
Toronto, October 12, 2006
The problem
Recognizing the impact of infectious diseases on
national and international health, economic
development and security, can a truly
comprehensive agreement between states be
developed that will limit and control known, newly
discovered or deliberately created infectious
diseases?
The need is well documented
• Emerging Infections: Microbial Threats to Health in the United States
1992, 2003, Institute of Medicine
• The Global Infectious Disease Threat and Its Implications for the United
States” 2000, unclassified report from the National Intelligence Council
• The Darker Bioweapons Future 2003, unclassified CIA document
analyzed the many benefits of modern molecular biology weighed
against the danger that “the effects of engineered biological agents
could be worse than any disease known to man.”
• National Security Strategy: 2006, “Public health challenges like
pandemics (HIV/AIDS, avian influenza) ... recognize no borders. The
risks to social order are so great that traditional public health
approaches may be inadequate, necessitating new strategies and
responses. ...” (italics added).
Dangerous assumption that an agreement
exists
Human Rights
1. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (New York, 1966)
2. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (New York, 1966)
3. Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (New
York, 1966)
4. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (New
York, 1948)
5. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (New York, 1984)
6. Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (New York, 2002)
7. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and
Members of their Families (New York, 1990)
8. Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of
children in armed conflict (New York, 2000)
9. Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of
children, child prostitution and child pornography (New York, 2000)
Refugees
10. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Geneva, 1951)
11. Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (New York, 1967)
Penal Matters
12. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome, 1998)
13. Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court (New
York, 2002)
14. Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel (New York,
1994)
Terrorism
15. International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (New York,
1997)
16. International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (New
York,1999)
17. International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (New
York, 2005)
Organized Crime and Corruption
18. United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (New York,
2000)
19. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women
and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime (New York, 2000)
20. Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (New York, 2000)
21. Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts
and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime (New York, 2001)
22. United Nations Convention against Corruption (New York, 2003)
Environment
23. Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(Kyoto, 1997)
24. Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain
Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (Rotterdam, 1998)
25. Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (Stockholm, 2001)
26. Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity (Montreal,
2000)
Law of the Sea
27. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Montego Bay, 1982)
and Agreement relating to the implementation of Part XI of the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (New York, 1994)
Disarmament
28. Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (New York, 1996)
29. Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of
Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Oslo, 1997)
Law of Treaties
30. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Vienna, 1969)
Health
31. WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (Geneva, 21 May 2003)
BUT NO COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM
FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES
The 4 parts of the Compact
1.
2.
3.
4.
Establish, maintain and monitor international standards for
surveillance and reporting of infectious diseases using advanced
information technology to ensure timeliness, interoperability and
security
Establish, maintain and monitor international standards for best
laboratory practices
Expand capabilities for the production of vaccines and
therapeutics expressly for emerging and reemerging infections
Establish, maintain and monitor a network of international
research centers for microbial threats.
Part 1
Establish, maintain and monitor international standards for surveillance
and reporting of infectious diseases
• States parties to the Compact would set up
standard, secure computer architectures for
biosurveillance information systems
• Parties would define and continuously refine
criteria for surveillance and reporting as the
environment changes
The problem is global and dynamic
Challenges and roadmap for systems solutions (1)
• trust between signatory nations and a willingness to
share biosurveillance data
• developing incentives to share data
• creation of a common architecture for information
systems requires common ontologies
• developing and validating new algorithms and models of
disease spread
•
consequences of non-reporting, or significantly underreporting the incidence of communicable diseases
challenges and roadmap (2)
• integrate current initiatives into national health IT
strategies and federal architectures to reduce the risk of
duplicative efforts
• develop and adopt consistent interoperability standards
• create enough flexibility to bring together disparate
underlying IT languages and technologies to provide a
common operating picture
• generate the ability to accept multiple data formats used
by agencies that provide the bio-surveillance information
challenges and roadmap (3)
• generate the ability to feed information back to the
originating agencies providing bio-surveillance
information in a format each agency can accept
• identify data flows that will evolve during the
developmental process
• allow the methods of analysis to evolve and adapt as
new data become available or existing data sets are
improved
• know and evaluate the effectiveness of the current
underlying algorithms, methods, and structures for
biosurveillance data analysis.
Next steps
1. Feedback and suggestions from international
community: www.istar.upenn.edu/compact
2. Draft the legal, business and research cases
engaging
•
•
•
•
the pharmaceutical industry
the information technology industry
NGOs
Academia
3. Present plans to the appropriate national and
international governmental agencies
Global Collaborators
Martin J. Blaser, M.D., Frederick H. King Professor of Internal Medicine, Chair, Department of Medicine,
Professor of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine
William W. Burke-White, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania, Member, Government of
Rwanda, Constitutional Commission, Member, International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, The Hague.
Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD. Professor, Medicine, Microbiology, & Immunology, Chair, Department of
Microbiology & Immunology, Leo and Julia Forchheimer Professor of Microbiology & Immunology
Abdallah S. Daar D.PHIL(OXON), FRCP(LON), FRCS(ENG.&ED.), FRCSC, FRS(C). Professor of Public Health
Sciences and of Surgery at the University of Toronto, Director of the Program in Applied Ethics and
Biotechnology, co-Director of the Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health and Director of Ethics
and Policy at the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine.
David Franz, DVM. PhD, Senior Biological Scientist, Midwest Research Institute and Director of the National
Agricultural Biosecurity Center at Kansas State University
Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies and Vice Principal (Research), King's College London
Malcolm Gillis, PhD. Zingler Professor of Economics and University Professor, Rice University
Manfred S Green MD, PhD. Director, Israel Center for Disease Control , Professor of Epidemiology and
Preventive Medicine in the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University Dr. Green’s views do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Israel Ministry of Health.
Phillip A. Griffiths, PhD. Professor, School of Mathematics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton NJ. Former
Director, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
J. Tomas Hexner, MBA. Director Science Initiative Group. Cambridge, Massachusetts
Chung W. Kim, PhD. Director Emeritus, Korea Institute for Advanced Studies, Emeritus Professor, Physics and
Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University
Stuart B. Levy M.D., Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology and of Medicine and the Director of the
Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University, School of Medicine, Boston,
Massachusetts
Dr. Adel Mahmoud M.D. PhD., President of Merck Vaccines (retired).
Erwann Michel-Kerjan, PhD., Managing Director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Peter A. Singer, MD, MPH, FRCPC , Co-Director of the Canadian Program in Genomics and Global Health;
Senior Scientist at the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine; Professor of Medicine at University of
Toronto and University Health Network; and a Distinguished Investigator of the Canadian Institutes of Health
Research.
2. Can biological systems operationalize certain aspects of cyber
systems so that we can understand and design advanced
cyber systems?
Logic operations
Programmable
Parallel processing
Cyber
Bio
5
5
3
1
2
5
Len Adelman DNA computation papers—highly
parallel, solve NP problems
Physical Limitations of DNA Computing
Hamiltonian path problem
25 nodes…..
1 kilogram of DNA needed
70 nodes…..
1000 kilograms of DNA needed
Decryption
101233 strands of DNA
at 0.17 uM------->101216 liters!
From Cox, Cohen,& Ellington
Adleman reported in a meeting that
he solved a 20 variable SAT problem using DNA
“It is not remarkable that the bear dances well-It is that the bear dances at all”
Not particularly interested in dancing bears, we decided to
see if DNA computing had anything to say about some of
the fundamental limits of computation
Energy efficiency
Logically reversible
Thermodynamically reversible
Cyber
2
2
2
The Fundamental Physical Limits of Computation
What constraints govern the physical process of computing? Is a
minimum amount of energy required, for example, per logic step?
There seems to be no minimum., but some other questions are open
by Charles H. Bennett and Rolf Landauer
Scientific American 253(1):48-56 (July, 1985).
Bio
5
4
4
A Fredkin Gate: Logically reversible with no
energy limit on the computation
CAB is a piece of DNA that we can synthesize
a NAND gate
Why reversible?
Minimal energy expense
Detection and correction of intrusion
Error checking by reversing computation
to recreate inputs
Bidirectional debugging
In principle it can take minimal energy to go
through a biochemical gate
DNAn + dNTP
DNAn+1 + PPi
D G = kt ln[dNTP/PPi]
If dNTPs are just 1% over the equilibrium value:
D G = kt ln[10.1/10] or about 0.01kT
a modification of an idea in Bennett and Landaur’s Sci. Am
paper—suggested using RNA
We synthsized the oligonucleotides and ran the reactions
Klein, JP., Leete, TH. & Rubin H. A Biomolecular
Implementation of Logically Reversible Computation
with Minimal Energy Dissipation. BioSystems 52, 1523, 1999.
The gate works in the lab
How fast is the gate?
t1/2 annealing:
3 sec.
DNA polymerization rate:
15 bases/sec
For 60 bases pair input:
10 sec
2. Can biological systems operationalize certain aspects of
cyber systems so that we can understand and design
advanced cyber systems?
---NO
3. Can cyber systems operationalize certain aspects of biological
systems so that we can understand and design advanced biological
systems?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Nano-bio
2007 NSTI Nanotechnology Conference
Medical devices
and Trade Show – May 2007 - Santa
Lab on a chip
Clara
NSF workshop on high confidence
medical devices and software systems
Life Sciences & Medicine
last year
Bio-nano Materials & Tissues
Subject of Tele-Physical services and
Bio Sensors & Diagnostics
applications working group at this meeting Biomarkers & Nanoparticles
> $3 billion invested already
Cancer Nanotechnology
Cellular & Molecular Dynamics
Drug Delivery & Therapeutics
Imaging
Nano Medicine
Nanotech to Neurology
Answer to Question 3--YES
4. Can cyber systems operationalize certain aspects of biological
systems so that we can understand and design advanced
cyber systems?
Evolvable
Self learning
Self repair
Self correcting
Self assembly
Self-Replicating (hardware)
Richness of user interface
Cyber
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
Bio
5
5
5
5
5
5
4
Multi-agent communication
Aggregate data and predict outcomes
Solve the “inverse problem”
3
0-1
0-1
4
4
5
Impact on society
0-4
5
Can cyber systems operationalize certain aspects of biological
systems so that we can understand and design advanced cyber
systems?
examples abound from molecular level to
societal level
– Persistence in bacteria as hedge strategy against attack
– Cellular metabolism- metabolome:metabolic flux models
• supply chain
– Swarm behavior
• Autonomous mobile robots
• Inverse problem
– Markets
• Data aggregation
• Event prediction
Prediction markets
•
•
•
•
buy and sale of contracts to predict future events
value of the contracts depends on the outcome of the event
contract traders have special information about the event
to profit, traders will use their information to buy contracts
that they consider undervalued and sell contracts that are
overvalued.
• the trade price reflects an aggregated consensus about the
future value, i.e. a prediction of the future event.
• the Iowa Electronic Market (IEM): election predictions, interest
rate decisions of the Federal Reserve, currency and stock
prices, movie box office receipts, IPOs, congressional approval
of legislation, the future sale of Harry Potter Books
prediction markets support decisions
• markets give continuously updated dynamic forecasts.
• thru the price formation process, markets aggregate information
across traders, solving complex aggregation problems.
• markets give unbiased, relatively accurate forecasts in advance of
outcomes
• forecasts can outperform existing alternatives
• markets can be designed to forecast a variety of issues
• markets are generally the best available mechanism for gathering
and aggregating dispersed information from private, self-interested
economic agents.
Information Systems Frontiers 5:1, 79–93, 2003
Prediction Markets as Decision Support Systems
J.E. Berg, T.A. Rietz University of Iowa
Personal knowledge-search engines---“trade” --- aggregate---predict–
autonomously reconfigure
Bio-systems under potential attack
Persistence in bacteria
• microorganisms often encounter an
environment with limited nutrients or
certain other stress related stimuli
• they enter a dramatically slowed growth
state until a new equilibrium is
established
Persistence in bacteria
Kill curves in the presence of ampicillin
E. COLI PERSISTENCE LINKED TO (p)ppGpp BY A MIXED STOCHASTIC
AND DETERMINISTIC MECHANISM
Halász, Buckstein, Imieliński, Marjanovich, Teh, Kumar, Rubin
Molecular components of persistence in bacteria
Model simulation results.
B
A: The stringent response triggered by a transient
fluctuation of (p)ppGpp. B: The stringent
response following a mild downshift in nutrient
availability, C: Experimentally determined
(p)ppGpp level in E. coli grown in 0.4% glucose
MOPS with 10 μg/mL thiamine. This tracing
should be compared with (p)ppGpp in panel B
above showing very similar results to calculated
(p)ppGpp.
nmol/ 5x10E9 cells
A
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
C
1
0.5
0
5
7
9
11
hours
13
15
Simulation results illustrating the shutdown mechanism and
the cumulative effect of many shutdown episodes on the
survival properties of a colony.
A
B
C
Lines marked "(p)ppGpp knockout" were obtained by
turning off the (p)ppGpp production mechanism and setting
the (p)ppGpp concentration to its basal level, effectively
zero. (A) timecourses of instantaneous growth rate (top)
and of the toxin and antitoxin concentrations during one
shutdown event. The shutdown is missed in the knockout
because of a larger average difference between the toxin
and antitoxin concentrations. The same fluctuation leads to
a smaller slowdown event.
(B) Histograms obtained by sampling the growth rates of one
single-cell simulation over approximately 1000 hours. The thin
line marked "(p)ppGpp knockout 2" corresponds to a shorter
sampling period which does not include a large shutdown
event.
(C) Kill curves derived from the growth rate
histograms. Both versions of the knockout exhibit
fewer persisters.
Bio-systems under potential attack
Persistence in bacteria
•
Persistence emerges when the stringent response mechanism is randomly engaged
generating a very small population of slow-growing bacteria that revert to normal
growth rates only when the necessary protein synthesis machinery re-accumulates.
•
The proposed model of persistence has only a single stable steady state.
•
In this model, stochastic fluctuations trigger a fast growing cell to dramatically slow its
growth, which then deterministically rebounds to its original fast growing state.
•
On a population level, this model predicts the existence of a continuous distribution of
growth rates that includes a substantial “tail” of slow growing cells. In the presence
of a bactericidal antibiotic, which preferentially kills fast growing cells, this model
reproduces the phenomenon of persistence and closely matches in vivo kill curve
data.
•
Can this mechanism be operationalized by cyber systems as hedge against attack?
Research program:
Can cyber systems operationalize certain aspects of
biological systems so that we can understand and design
advanced cyber systems?
Evolvable
Self learning
Self repair
Self correcting
Self assembly
Self-Replicating (hardware)
Richness of user interface
Cyber
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
Bio
5
5
5
5
5
5
4
Multi-agent communication
Aggregate data and predict outcomes
Solve the “inverse problem”
3
0-1
0-1
4
4
5
Impact on society
0-4
5
“ We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the
other things, not because they are easy, but because
they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize
and measure the best of our energies and skills,
because that challenge is one that we are willing to
accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which
we intend to win…”
John F. Kennedy Rice University September 12, 1962